Cornwallis, Charles, 1st Marquess and British General

Autograph letter signed ("Cornwallis"), 2 1/3 pages (9 1/4 x 7 1/4 in.; 235 x 185 mm), Culford, 4 August 1784, to Home Secretary / Foreign Secretary Lord Sydney, refusing the appointment as Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of India; 2 short vertical fold splits. Black cloth folding box, maroon morocco spine, 2 black morocco lettering pieces.  

Cornwallis refuses the double appointment as Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of India. Cornwallis modestly writes to the Home / Foreign Secretary Lord Sydney: "However my inclination might lead me to wish for retirement after the disappointments I experienced on the vexations and unfortunate service in which I have been engaged, yet if it appeared to me at any time that there could be a hope that my poor abilities would be useful to my country, no consideration of personal convenience or safety should induce me to shrink from it." Neither the government or English people blamed Cornwallis for capitulating at Yorktown. In fact the prime minister and author of the India Bill of 1784, William Pitt the Younger, thought him the only man capable of restoring the military and civil services of India to an efficient state and of repairing the damage to English prestige suffered after the defeats in the second Mysore war.  

"If I sought for the place of Governor General, I should not only abandon a profession to which I have hiter to sacrificed every consideration of advantage and happiness, but I should put myself in competition with some person ... much more proper for the office than myself ... after acknowledging my predilection for the Military line, I cannot undertake command in India, being convinced that in the present circumscribed situation of the Commander in chief, without power or patronage, an officer could neither get credit to himself nor effectually serve the Public."  Once further augmentations and clarifications of the Governor General's authority were made in 1786, presumably by Lord Sydney, Cornwallis accepted the position.